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How to contribute to xPack Ninja Build

GitHub package.json version NPM Version license GitHub issues GitHub pulls license

This page is designed for developers who intend to contribute new features or resolve bugs within the xPack Ninja Build project and provides documentation on building and testing the package.

The xPack Build Box

The build scripts in this project utilise the xPack Build Box (XBB) tools, which require the usual native development tools (packaged as a Docker image for GNU/Linux builds), complemented with several binary packages, installed with xpm as development dependencies.

For those interested in understanding how things work, a good starting point would be to read the XBB page.

caution

The XBB tools are intended for building standalone relocatable distributions, thus are quite complex and perform several post-processing steps to adjust RPATH and validate the resulting binaries.

For the traditional configure && make install builds specific to Linux, these scripts are probably too complicated and therefore are not recommended for inexperienced users.

xPack build configurations

The xPack Framework supports projects with multiple build configurations.

Build configurations are sets of properties, actions and dependencies that apply to a specific build. Build configurations can inherit from other build configurations.

For simple projects, the typical use case is with two configurations, Debug and Release.

For building the binary xPack executables, there is one configuration for each platform:

  • win32-x64
  • darwin-x64
  • darwin-arm64
  • linux-x64
  • linux-arm64
note

In case you wonder where these names originate from, they are exactly the Node.js process.platform and process.arch for each platform.

The build configurations are defined in the package.json file, within the xpack section.

{
  "...":"...",
  "xpack": {
    "buildConfigurations": {
      "...": {
      },
      "win32-x64": {
        "inherit": [
          "common-dependencies",
          "common-actions",
          "common-docker"
        ],
        "devDependencies": {
          "@xpack-dev-tools/gcc": "13.2.0-2.1",
          "@xpack-dev-tools/mingw-w64-gcc": "13.2.0-1.1",
          "@xpack-dev-tools/wine": "8.0.2-1.1"
        },
        "properties": {
          "dockerImage": "ilegeul/ubuntu:amd64-18.04-xbb-v5.2.2"
        },
        "actions": {
          "build": "{{properties.commandBashBuild}} --windows",
          "build-development": "{{properties.commandBashBuild}} --windows --development",
          "build-development-debug": "{{properties.commandBashBuild}} --windows --development --debug",
          "build-development-tests-only": "{{properties.commandBashBuild}} --windows --development --tests-only"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

To request xpm to perform a specific action on a given build configuration, utilise the --config <name> option.

For example:

xpm install --config darwin-x64
xpm run build --config darwin-x64
xpm/xPack actions

The xpm actions are extensions of npm scripts, i.e. named sequences of commands that are invoked via xpm run <name> to perform specific operations together in a sub-shell.

The commands are invoked in a sub-shell with an adjusted PATH, having the xpacks/.bin folder prepended. This ensures the locally installed tools are preferred to the system tools.

Actions may be defined for the entire project or for a specific build configuration.

The actions are defined in the package.json file, within the xpack section, at the top or inside build configurations.

tip

For those who, for various reasons, cannot utilise xpm, it is perfectly possible to manually adjust the PATH and to invoke the sequence of commands in order, just that it is more tedious, since multiple substitutions must be performed to compose the commands.

Visual Studio Code integration

xpm/xPack actions and build configurations are supported in Visual Studio via the xPack C/C++ Managed Build Tools extension.

With this extension installed, xpm actions may be very conveniently invoked via a single mouse click, for example:

xpm actions

Prerequisites​

The build scripts execute on GNU/Linux and macOS. The Windows binaries are compiled on GNU/Linux, utilising mingw-w64.

For details on installing the prerequisites, please read the Build Prerequisites page.

Obtain project sources​

The project is hosted on GitHub:

Branches

This project utilises multiple branches:

  • master, not actively used
  • xpack, containing the latest stable version (default)
  • xpack-development, containing the current development version
  • website, containing the current website content; pushes to this branch automatically trigger publication of the main website
  • development, containing the current preview website content; pushes to this branch automatically trigger publication of the preview website

All development is conducted in the xpack-development branch, and contributions via Pull Requests should be directed to this branch.

When new releases are published, the xpack-development branch is merged into xpack.

To clone the stable branch (xpack), execute the following commands in a terminal (on Windows use the Git Bash console):

rm -rf ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git && \
mkdir -p ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools && \
git clone \
  --branch xpack \
  https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git \
  ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git
For development purposes, clone the xpack-development branch.
rm -rf ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git && \
mkdir -p ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools && \
git clone \
  --branch xpack-development \
  https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git \
  ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git

Alternatively, if the repository has already been cloned:

git -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git pull
tip

To contribute Pull Requests, fork the project and ensure the Copy the master branch only is disabled.

Utilise the xpack-development branch and ensure you contribute the Pull Requests back to the xpack-development branch.

During development, it is convenient to maintain a writable instance of the library to enable changes in parallel with the parent project.

To facilitate the use of a writable instance of this library in other projects, add a link from the user's global xPacks store to this local development folder:

xpm link -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git

And in the projects referring it:

xpm link @xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build
Get the writable helper sources (optional, for development purposes)

The project has a dependency on a common helper, that is normally installed as a read-only dependency; for development purposes, to be able to make changes to the scripts located within the helper, clone the xpack-development branch and link it to the user's global xPacks store:

rm -rf ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/xbb-helper-xpack.git && \
mkdir -p ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools && \
git clone \
  --branch xpack-development \
  https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/xbb-helper-xpack.git \
  ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/xbb-helper-xpack.git && \
xpm link -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/xbb-helper-xpack.git

For more details on how a writable helper may be utilised via xpm link, please refer to the XBB documentation.

Other repositories​

Other repositories in use are:

  • none

How to build​

The builds require dedicated machines for each platform (x64 GNU/Linux, armh64 GNU/Linux, arm GNU/Linux, x64 macOS and arm64 macOS).

Update the repository​

git -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git pull
... and the helper (when using a writable helper) ...
git -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/xbb-helper-xpack.git pull

Build the binaries​

The Windows builds execute on GNU/Linux, utilising mingw-w64.

To prepare the docker build:

xpm run install -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets && \
xpm run docker-prepare --config win32-x64 -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets
... or, with the writable helper ...
xpm run install -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets && \
xpm run link-deps -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets && \
xpm run docker-prepare --config win32-x64 -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets && \
xpm run docker-link-deps --config win32-x64 -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets

To execute the docker build:

xpm run docker-build --config win32-x64 -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets

or, for increased verbosity, execute the similar development build:

xpm run docker-build-development --config win32-x64 -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets

Several minutes later, the output of the build script is a compressed archive and its SHA signature, created within the build-assets/build/win32-x64/deploy folder:

  • xpack-ninja-build-1.13.1-1-win32-x64.tar.gz
  • xpack-ninja-build-1.13.1-1-win32-x64.tar.gz.sha

To re-execute the build, invoke the deep-clean action and repeat from installation:

xpm run deep-clean --config win32-x64 -C ~/Work/xpack-dev-tools/ninja-build-xpack.git/build-assets

Compile with debug information​

In some cases it is necessary to execute a debug session with the binaries.

For these cases, the build script accepts the --debug options.

There are also xpm actions that utilise this option (build-development-debug and docker-build-development-debug).

Utilise a local cache​

The XBB build scripts utilise a local cache such that files are downloaded only during the first execution, later executions being able to utilise the cached files.

However, occasionally some servers may not be available, and the builds may fail.

The workaround is to manually download the files from alternate locations (such as https://github.com/xpack-dev-tools/files-cache/tree/master/libs), place them in the XBB cache (Work/cache) and restart the build.